Is Your Office Toxic?

In days past, when addressing the wellness needs of patients, the primary focus has been on the home environment.

That is not so today in the rapidly changing workplace environments. Many workers as well as employers lack knowledge of chemical, infectious and other toxic exposure in the workplace.

Often more time is spent enroute and at the workplace than at home. As a result, chronic health issues from prolonged sitting and riding in vehicles is an area that corporate wellness providers can address from a preventive perspective for employee wellness.

The changing nature of the workplace environment, with more focus on open cubicles and shared work spaces have created workplace issues that as short as 5 years ago were not prevalent. A joke that was told to me while working on a corporate wellness assignment for an international bank was “if you are well, stay home.”

Why not allow your Corporate Wellness Provider to enlist patients for educational training on what optimizes or suppresses the immune system?

EMF Toxicity in the Workplace

EMF toxicity was not an issue in the workplace in the past. But increase use of wi-fi, smart phone, iPads and cell phones have brought this health issue to the forefront in recent years.

One interesting article of research published in the J Biomed Phys Eng. 2016 Dec 1;6(4):279-284.:

“Over the past several years, our lab has focused on the health effects of exposure to different sources of electromagnetic fields such as cellular phones, mobile base stations, mobile phone jammers, laptop computers, radars, dentistry cavitrons and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Our own studies as well as the studies performed by other researchers indicate that using laptop computers on the lap adversely affects the male reproductive health. When it is placed on the lap, not only the heat from a laptop computer can warm men’s scrotums, the electromagnetic fields generated by laptop’s internal electronic circuits as well as the Wi-Fi Radiofrequency radiation hazards (in a Wi-Fi connected laptop) may decrease sperm quality. Furthermore, due to poor working posture, laptops should not be used on the lap for long hours.”

There may be even other large EMF generating equipment in the area that is not visible, but the EMF effects are occurring.

Corporate Wellness with a focus on prevention, could benefit corporations by learning current modalities utilized for EMF protection for employees.

Business Travelers

Frequent international air travel for work as well as for leisure, has increased the risk of employee exposure to infectious agents during travel and possible exposure of co-workers to infectious agents on their return to work.

It is not impossible for an exposure to an infectious communicable agent to spread within a closely confined working group of employees.

This would be an optimal place for Corporate Wellness Providers to develop and provide prevention plan for infectious disease prior to, as well as on return, from international travel. This plan would include more than just the routine vaccinations, but a more in-depth individualized physical and emotional plan of disease prevention.

Chemical Sensitivities at Work

Those employees with multiple chemical sensitivities are often subject to the irritating effects of fragrances worn by co-workers.

Here’s a recent example:

An employee took out her nail polish and applied a coat of polish to her nails at work. The symptoms from the scent of the polish incapacitated her coworker sitting in the next cubicle and sent him home for the rest of the day.

Many are currently unaware of the ever increasing potential environmental workplace health hazards, such as Multiple Chemical Sensitivities [MCS], and ways to prevent them.

An article entitled “Got MCS?” by the Environmental Working Group in 2013 states that because of this concern, “numerous institutions nationwide are making their workplaces fragrance free.”

Corporate Education and Prevention Needed

A corporate wellness consultant is in a unique position to enhance the company’s ROI with prevention strategies that result in less employee sick time and absenteeism. Enlisting corporate wellness providers, who have both knowledge and skill, to enroll employees in prevention programs, is an essential element to staying ahead of the wellness curve in the ever-changing workplace environment.

These critical providers can address employee wellness from both a non-work as well as a work perspective. When providers focus on prevention they become critical assets to any organization.

Corporate wellness consultants who focus on prevention may very well provide the missing link for wellness in the workplace!

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